After visiting northern Italy I planned to head straight to France to spend some time in Burgundy, but when I went to book my train the morning of my departure the ticket office in Torino was complete chaos. Papers flying, people shouting, hands gesturing wildly. So I decided to just abandon the idea of making a reservation on the high speed train into France and just hop on the slow trains (free for rail pass holders, no reservation required) north into Switzerland. Last time I was in Switzerland I absolutely loved the beautiful landscapes, the walkable cities, and the uniquely Swiss architecture in the villages that dot the countryside. I wasn't planning on spending time in Switzerland on this trip solely because I'm on a tighter budget than my last European trip and Switzerland is very, very expensive. But, having never been to Zurich, I thought it was worth a trip. Although it doesn't have the mountains and the overwhelming natural beauty that many other places in Switzerland have, it's still beautiful in it's own river-centric-densely-populated-charming-Swiss-city kind of way.

Unfortunately, the one downside is that there seems to be construction pretty much everywhere you go in the old town of Zurich. Much of it isn't just construction but painstaking excavation work to preserve the city and the artifacts beneath some of the oldest squares and structures in town. While this made photographing the city difficult (wonderful potential photos were often blighted by the appearance of cranes and temporary fencing), it's certainly a testament to the city's priority of preserving their history. I can get onboard with that.

Unfortunately, this is the image that dominates my mind when it comes to what Zurich actually looks like. There's a lot of painstaking excavation work and construction going on around the city. It was difficult to shoot photos without the appearance of a crane or a crew of workers in high-visibility protective gear.